Amazon Unveils Ability to Stream Video on the Xbox 360 for Prime Subscribers

Netflix on the Xbox isn’t great, but here’s something that will be: Amazon Instant Video

Amazon Instant Video is for Amazon Prime members only, the service which gives users free next day delivery. Amazon says it offers over 17,000 movies and TV episodes.

The press release confirms the service is Prime- and Xbox Live Gold-only, and offers access to Prime Instant Video which grants access to the aforementioned 17,000 movies and TV episodes for no additional cost. The app is available to download in the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Apparently Amazon Instant Video was one of the most requested features from Amazon customers according to Anthony Bay, Amazon US vice president for video. He added the service will allow users to view newly released movies and TV shows. There is also Kinect integration, which is actually pretty useful for using media apps.

Instant Streaming is Certainly Instant

Amazon has also included it WhisperSync technology for switching between content on the Kindle Fire and the Xbox 360 without having to re-find the position to resume the content from. And then there’s Watchlist, which allows users to keep track track of videos they want to see in the future (the service’s version of Read It Later).

Microsoft said working with Amazon marked the next step in making content more amazing on the Xbox 360. Movies for the service can be bought from Amazon, where there are 120,000 movies and TV shows. Living up to its Instant name, content bough on the website immediately appears in the app. Among the movies available to watch, Amazon mentioned Mission Impossible and Mad Men. Guess I’m signing up to Prime, then, which costs $79 a year.

The service could have been announced intentionally so close to E3 because Microsoft says it will unveil a few surprises at the Expo, which could be the music service. If so, Microsoft could have premium services for playing games, listening to music and watching TV and movies. Even though I rip on Microsoft for not pushing enough games, it really does paint the Xbox as a media-complete device. I feel for the majority of consumers – they don’t want to buy devices for specific functions.

Written by:Jon Charles Jonathan is a writer on the technology and video game industries. He is comfortable with using Mac OS X and Windows; he began using Windows with Windows XP during his early double-digit years, and started using OS X in 2009 on a MacBook Pro. He began gaming on the SNES back in the 90s.